13 Minutes (Elser)

"Well-made and fortuitously timed bio-drama of a nearly forgotten German who tried to assassinate his country's fascist dictator at the beginning of World War II." (Movie Nation) From the director of 'Downfall'

“The German historical drama 13 Minutes opens with the sound of strenuous human grunting, accompanied by the regular ticktock of a mechanical timer. It’s Nov. 8, 1939, several hours before an explosive device, planted by Georg Elser, is set to go off, almost killing Adolf Hitler, who, as history tells us, had left the building in which the bomb was planted mere minutes earlier.

“After Georg (Christian Friedel) has been arrested while trying to slip across the Swiss border with a pocketful of bomb-making plans, the film flashes back to 1932, when we are introduced to Elser several years before he has become radicalized. The movie is a psychological portrait of resistance, made all the more timely — and creepily, almost offensively, unsettling — given the current political climate in the United States.

“Friedel’s performance is top-notch, especially when the film flashes forward again to scenes of his post-arrest interrogation and torture, in which the previously soft and sensual Georg shows himself to be a surprisingly tough kuchen.

“In the end, 13 Minutes isn’t about the timing or logistics of one man’s plot to kill Hitler at all, but about what made that man tick.” - Washington Post